As the title implies, the purpose of the book is to explore the question of God’s foreknowledge. It is meant to be a critical evaluation of open theism, which is the view that God cannot know the future, free choices made by moral agents because the future does not exist. One of the strengths of Roy’s work is that he interacts directly with Open Theists, quoting them at length. This avoids the potential for constructing a straw man argument, and allows the reader to consider Open Theists arguments for themselves.

In the first four chapters Roy argues that the OT and NT provide ample reason to believe God’s knowledge of the future is exhaustive – including the free choices of moral agents – and that the counter-evidence offered by open theists is not persuasive. Texts which imply God’s ignorance are best understood as anthropomorphic metaphors.

Chapter five addresses the claims by open theism that the classical understanding of God’s foreknowledge was colored by Greek philosophy more so than Scripture, and finds it wanting. There is no such thing as Greek philosophy, but rather a myriad of Greek philosophies. Not all Greek philosophy was false, so some amount of conceptual overlap is not necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, Open Theism is just as influenced by particular philosophical views as was any church father by Greek philosophies.

Chapter 6 rounds out the book by discussing the practical implications of Open Theology on worship, prayer, God’s ability to guide us, suffering, and our future hope.

While Open Theology is not the hot topic it once was 15-20 years ago, it hasn’t gone away, and its influence is still being felt in evangelical circles. If you would like to learn more about Open Theism and what is wrong with the view, or if you know someone who has been influenced by Open Theism, I think you will find that Roy’s How Much Does God Foreknow is an excellent and comprehensive resource.

UPDATE 2/18/15

I am adding the notes I took from the book (including page numbers). This may help give you a better sense of the argument:

The goal of the book: To examine Scripture to see if it affirms that God foreknows the free decisions of human beings.—23

Divine knowledge of counterfactuals of human freedom are shown in 1 Sam 23:10-14 and Mt 11:21-24—23

Chapter 2 – OT Evidence of Divine Foreknowledge

No Hebrew word for foreknowledge.—27

Ps 139:4 – God knows David’s words before they are spoken.—31

While God may be able to predict that someone will speak, and may even – at the moment the person begins to speak – know what they will speak about, how could God know the precise words David would speak unless God has knowledge of future-free-contingent-acts (FFCA)?

Ps 139:16 – God ordained all the days of David’s life before they came to be.—33

Predictive prophecies (Author counted 4017 predictive prophecies in Scripture, and 2323 of those relate to FFCA.—34)

1 Kings 11:34-37 – 10 tribes will secede

This prophecy depended on the free choices of the 10 tribes to make Jeroboam their king and for the other two tribes to choose to remain loyal to the Davidic monarchy.—36

1 Kings 13:2 – Prophecy that Josiah would sacrifice and burn the bones of the priests at the altar of Jeroboam.—37

How could God know the free choice of what to name children?

How could God know that Josiah would do this?

2 Kings 7:1-2,16-20 – Prophecy concerning price of flour—40

God had to know the FFCA of the four lepers to go into the camp, and then to report it to the gatekeepers of Samaria

God had to know the king’s willingness to investigate

God had to know the people would rush through the gate, killing the official.

God had to know that Babylonians would choose to attack Israel, and how they would respond with their treasures and royalty

1 Kings 15:5-6 – Prophecy of Jeroboam’s wife’s actions—42

1 Kings 22:22,29-40 – Prophecy that Ahab would die in battle—42

2 Kings 3:18-19,24-25 – Prophecy to Jehoshaphat and Joram that Moab would be defeated.—42

In Isaiah 40-48 the unique feature of YHWH, and that which proves that He alone is God, is His unique ability to know the future (41:21-29; 42:8-9; 43:9-12; 44:7-8; 44:24—45:6; 45:20-21; 46:9-11; 48:3-5; 48:6-11)—55

Is 42:8-9 – God will announce the new things before they happen

Open theists would say God can’t know these events because they are in the future, and the future doesn’t exist. And yet, God says he knows them.

Is 44:28—45:1 – God predicts not only what a future man will do in regards to Israel, but even his name.

Is 46:11 – What God is able to declare from the end to the beginning includes the FFCA of Cyrus.—52-3

Required a myriad of FFCA: decision of Caesar to issue the decree, decision of Joseph to obey and travel with pregnant wife

It is impossible for God to know what He will infallibly do in the future since the FFCA of humans could radically change His intentions, or make His plan no longer applicable.—68

Chapter 3 – NT Evidence of Divine Foreknowledge

Greek does have words for foreknowledge. Verb is used five times, three of which relate to God’s knowledge (Rom 8:29; 11:2; 1 Pet 1:20). The noun is used two times in reference to God’s knowledge (Acts 2:23; 1 Pet 1:2). Other words too. Prooizo is used six times, each time with God as subject (Acts 4:28; Rom 8:29-30; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 1:5,11). Verb proorao used four times (Acts 2:25,31; 21:29; Gal 3:8)—73

Acts 2:23 – God foreknew his own intent to have Jesus killed, and that wicked men would choose to be complicit (See also Acts 4:27-28)—74-5

Rom 8:29 – God knew in advance who would choose Him –79-80

Mt 6:34 – We are not to worry about the things of tomorrow because God already knows what we’ll need in the future. Our future needs are shaped by our free choices, as well as the choices of others, so for God to know what we’ll need tomorrow, He must know our free choices in advance.—90-1

Jesus’ passion predictions (Mk 8:31; par. Mt 16:21; Lk 9:22 | Mk 9:31; par. Mt 17:22-23; Lk 9:44 | Mk 10:33-34; par. Mt 20:17-19; Lk 18:31-33) – Jesus knew that people would betray Him, to whom He would be betrayed, what their verdict would be, that they would hand Him over to the Gentiles, that they would mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him via crucifixion. That’s a lot of free choices!—92-3

Mk 14:29-31 (Lk 22:31-32) – Jesus predicated Peter’s denial: when it would happen, how many times he would do it, and what would happen immediately afterward. It would also require Jesus’ knowledge that others would freely choose to ask Peter if he knew Jesus—96-100

Jn 13:19 – According to Jesus, his knowledge of Judas and Peter’s future actions was important because it would serve to confirm Jesus’ divine identity to His disciples. This has verbal and conceptual parallels with Is 41:4 and Is 43:10.—111-2

Repentance of God – Open theists claim that the genuineness of these passages requires God’s ignorance of the future.

Hebrew verb niham. 35 passages have God as the subject.—127

Gen 6:6-7; 8:21 – God repented for making man. God later recognized that his decision to judge the whole earth was not wise. Boyd asks how God could have true regret about making man if He knew all along what they would do. Regret only happens when the outcome is different than what we expected or hoped for when the decision ws made. Sanders makes a good point against Calvinism: How could God be grieved if what happened was in His sovereign control and what happened is precisely what God wanted to happen?—128-30,145

1 Sam 15:11,35 – God is grieved for having made Saul king.

Jon 3:9-10 – God changed his mind about judging Ninevah because they changed their hearts and behavior. | While there is no condition attached to Jonah’s message, it is implicit in the very fact that Jonah is telling them in advance that they would be destroyed. Why else would God announce this in advance if He did not hope to change their actions, and avert His judgment?—131-2

Jer 18:7-10 – God will repent of His announced blessing if the people sin, and repent of His pronounced judgment if the people repent.—133

Ps 110:4 – God makes an oath and will not change His mind. While divine announcements can be repented of by God, He will never repent of an oath/decree.—148-9

Num 23:19 – God is not a man that he should lie or change his mind. What God promises he will do. This must refer to God’s nature and not just a choice He is making in this particular situation, otherwise the parallel does not hold. After all, if men can lie and repent sometimes, and not lie and not repent at other times, then they would be no different from God. What makes God unique is that He never lies and never repents, unlike man.—150,156

1 Sam 15:29 – Similar statement to Num 23:19, this time in reference to taking away Saul’s kingship and giving it to another. Yet within this chapter, two times we are told that God does change His mind (vs. 11,35). How do we reconcile? In verses 11 and 35 niham is used to mean “experience emotional pain”, but in verse 29 it is used to mean “retract.”—153

Hos 11:8-9 –

McFague defines a metaphor as “seeing one thing as something else, pretending ‘this’ is ‘that’ because we do not know how to think or talk about ‘this,’ so we use ‘that’ as a way of saying something about it. Thinking metaphorically means spotting a thread of similarity between two dissimilar objects, events, or whatever, one of which is better known than the other, and using the better-known one as a way of speaking about the lesser known.”[1] She says metaphorical statements “always contain the whisper, ‘it is and it is not.’”—160

God’s foreknowledge and repentance are anthropomorphic metaphors. We must ask how God’s F and R are similar to humans’ and how it is different.—168-9

Open theists make the mistake of thinking that God’s repentance is like ours. Since we only repent because we cannot foresee the future and because we made unwise decisions, the same must be true of God.—173

“Divine repentance denotes God’s awareness of a change in the human situation and his resulting change of emotions or actions in light of this change situation.” Bruce Ware noted that “just because God knows in advance that some event will occur, this does not preclude God from experiencing appropriate emotions and expressing appropriate reactions when it actually happens.”[2]—174-5

Just as God could plan for Jesus to die, and yet still grieve over it, likewise God can know that X will happen, and yet grieve over it when it does.—176

Divine testing – The only reason for God to test someone is because He doesn’t know what they will choose to do—177

Dt 8:2 – Wilderness wanderings were a test to see whether Israel would keep God’s commands

2 Chron 32:31 – God tested Hezekiah to know what was in his heart

Gen 22:1,12 – God tests Abraham, and after he obeys, God says “now I know that you fear God….”—177

Geisler writes: “There is nothing here about God’s desire to learn Rather, God wanted to prove something (cf. 2 Chr 32:31). What God knew by cognition, he desired to show by demonstration. By passing the test, Abraham demonstrated what God already knew: namely that he feared God.”[3]—180

Ware and Piper argue there is a difference between what God knows by foreknowledge and what God knows by observation/experience.—181

The text doesn’t say God did not know what Abraham would do. God said that now he knew Abe feared Him. Using the open theist’s “take Scripture at face value” hermeneutic, would that mean that God did not know Abraham’s heart before he was willing to sacrifice Isaac, or that Abraham did not fear God prior to then? No, so surely God already knew. This is similar to Gen 3:9 in which God asks Adam and Eve where they are, and in verse 11 where He asks them whether or not they ate from the tree. Also, Gen 18:20-21 where God has to go see if the things He’s heard about Sodom are true. Would violate His knowledge of the past and His omniscience.—182-3

Boyd says we should interpret something as an anthropomorphism only if taking it literally is ridiculous, or if the genre is poetry.—183

Divine “perhaps” – 5x God says perhaps (Is 47:12; Jer 26:2-3; 36:3,7; 51:8; Ezek 12:1-3), indicating His uncertainty about the human response. It would be deceptive or inauthentic for God to speak this way if He already knew the outcome—185

Jer 26:2-3 – Perhaps the people will repent, then I will repent of planned disaster.—185-6

God is choosing to speak to the people from a human vantage point. From their perspective, their future response is uncertain because they have not yet chosen. It’s God’s recognition that their choice is free. Note that God did not tell the people this, but told Jeremiah to tell the people this.—186

Divine foreknowledge knows not only the end, but the means to that end.—190

Unfulfilled divine expectations – At times, what God expects to happen does not happen, surprising God.—191

Jer 3:6-7 – I thought that Israel would repent.—191

The point is that God had so ordered their circumstances that the average person would repent. But that does not mean that God did not know they would not act like the average human.—193

Chapter 5 – Two Critical Interpretive Questions

Has Greek philosophy shaped our analysis of Scripture?

Does the Bible teach a twofold understanding of the future and of God’s knowledge of it?—195

Greek philosophy

Which Greek philosophy? Diversity of thought.—198-201

Cicero argued like OTs to say that if God knows future free acts, then free will is not possible.—200-201

Just because there are similarities in thought does not mean Christians borrowed from Greek philosophy. And not all of their philosophical thinking was wrong.—203-4

Open Theism is also influenced heavily by philosophy, namely libertarian free will and A-theory of time and process thought.—211-7

Chapter 6 – Practical Implications—229

Worship

Prayer

If God does not know the future, His will might not be what we want done—245

Guidance

Suffering/evil

Like me, he argues that OT is not off the hook for explaining evil because God perfectly knows the present. He did not stop the Holocaust.—262-4

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40 Responses to “What I’ve been Reading: How Much Does God Foreknow?”

You know Jason, this is really a very difficult topic to discuss for the following reasoning:

“…..to believe God’s knowledge of the future is exhaustive….” is to believe that the future and knowledge itself are exhaustive; in other words, infinite, n’est ce pas?

First of all let’s drop the “God” catch-all-term concept and deal simply with the philosophy of the statement stated this way:

“To believe knowledge of the future is exhaustive is to believe that the future and knowledge itself are infinite.

Who then could believe such statement? If the infinite knowledge of the future can be believed then the infinite knowledge of past can also be believed n’est ce pas?

BUT, if that is the case, we have a circular argument to contend with and if we have a circular argument, we have no beginning and we have no end and therefore the conclusion must necessarily be meaningless, going round and around.

And if the conclusion is meaningless, the premise is meaningless and we are talking about endless and meaningless philosophy that must necessarily be in and of itself infinite and in turn, meaningless”

First, if there is a single all-powerful, all-intelligent Entity, what you call a god, from all viable, non-superstitious information presently known, described by human facts and perceptions, it is not a personal “god,” but an impersonal one.
I make my case for an impersonal Entity on the present circumstances surrounding a large number of human being’s famine, disease, and pestilence predicament on our planet, and this supposedly personal god’s lack of interest.

to have predetermination, an all-powerful being would need to precisely know the future movement of every single particle in the universe, in order to know the future.

Presently, the only known way this Entity could accomplish this feat is to BE each and every particle, or to be involved with each and every particle.

Whether or not this Entity IS the particle or tags along with every particle to know and calculate it’s individual path, the Entity would impart some “spin” to each particle by having observed each one, which has been confirmed by Quantum Physic’s Wave Duality Theory.

If the Entity was the particle, or just tags along with the particle, then this must affect the particle’s mass, therefore causing some pre-determination of direction to each particle by this Entity.

If either of these scenarios is the case, then by all of humanity’s perceptions there is really no real free will…..anytime, any place, for anyone.

As for the Christian bible and the Christian idea of a God, some of it’s stories cancel it’s own premises of a good and loving God of the New Testament, (Son of God, Jesus Christ) because of his “divine” interference with his apostle’s free will, confusing them by performing so-called “miracles” right before their simple, small-town eyes.

Similar to a 21st century techno-hip man going into the remote forests of New Guinea, showing off his latest I-phone to the locals, scaring the crap out of them, these actions by a supposedly loving, and kind god-man would be extremely confusing to any ancient man used to a normal life, who never new anything but a simple life, all of their lives.

These simple folks knew that no one walks on water for more than a nano-second!

To perpetuate this story as fact is really an affront to any thinking human being, ancient or modern.
Any thinking psychologist would instantly see the unfair advantage Christ would’ve given to himself, the one we call a manipulation by a superior human of a group of normally thinking humans. Stage magicians do this type of manipulation all the time, and they are quite proficient at it!

If Christ really did exist, and he was the god that Christians promote him to be, then why didn’t he practice humility along with simplicity when he was teaching his apostles about faith? He was supposedly a “god,” and he wasn’t smart enough to teach them without using his super powers?

I will offer you a scenario: If I’m correct, Jesus had already performed several other miracles before he walked on water at the Sea Of Galilee, so indeed these same apostles KNEW already that Jesus was capable of great feats of magic, so why would walking on water, by a “god” be a lesson in faith to them?

Open theism makes sense of prayer and how prayer changes God’s mind. Isaiah.2 Kings 20:1-11 or Exodus 32:1-14 Otherwise you might have to say that God was playing with Moses and Hezekiah. God was going to destroy the Israelites but because of Moses prayer he changed his mind. Hezekiah was told that he was going to die but because of his prayer, God changed his mind and gave him 15 more years to live.

I understand and agree with you. BUT, and this is a very important point to remember, Jesus was not God, never said he was god and never accepted the label that he was god, no where, no how, no time, in the Bible. It is, unfortunately for Jesus legacy, that Christians have painted the tapestry of Jesus to suit their pseudo religious views of a person endowed with supernatural powers that DOES NOT EXIST, have never existed AND NEVER WILL EXIST; thus, has Jesus, the real man of compassion and love for the downtrodden, been bastardized by the clergy who would create Jesus in their image for pence and power that is nothing like the real man Jesus; who never did one single miracle but used common sense to perform feats that were not heard of in normal circles.

THE ONLY JESUS TO BELIEVE IN!

The life of Jesus covers the whole spectrum of human experience. The characters he encountered range from tyrants, murderers, bullies, thieves, jealous schemers, liars and assassins to noble kings, tender lovers, doting parents, roistering drunks, swaggering soldiers, philosophers, gravediggers and country bumpkins. How could one man, who lived all his life within a small area of the Middle East, have achieved such an encyclopedic knowledge of mankind?

The answer of course is by looking inside himself. In his own head and heart he found every possible trait of character and twist of emotion. His dialogue rings true because Jesus knew that he himself was Everyman. He had only to consult his own soul to imagine how any character would react in a given situation because he—-as a human being—- was also a microcosm of the whole human race.

Since each of us is a human being, each possesses within himself the whole potential range of emotions, urges, fears, anxieties, appetites, physical and emotional needs, instinctual drives and reactions common to all. This is not just idle philosophizing, it’s a fact of key importance to your own personal life and to your understanding of Jesus, the Son of Man.

Jesus never claimed to be God but alluded to being the “Son of God” as per Psalms 82 reference he used. When asked if he was the Son of God, he said: “It is you who say it”. And they did: Jesus was labeled as the Son of God by the masses and hence he was popularly portrayed as something he himself never claimed. Luke 22, 69-71
Then said they all, “Art thou then the Son of God?” And he said unto them, “Ye say that I am”.
And they said, “What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.” They were the fools of antiquity who tried to entrap a man who was a champion, an advocate, a defender, a hero, a messiah, for the common people he helped, bandaged, clothed, fed, loved and associated with in the truth of humanity.

[9] PRAYER works only when one prays to some one, a person, who can answer prayer: when you have a toothache you pray to the dentist to relieve your pain

[10] YOU pray to the judge to give you justice, to your family or the bank for a loan; you call 911 for help

[11] THOSE are prayers that have effect, prayers to a reality capable of answering them, not a myth

Think of it this way for a change because there is nothing in the cosmos that makes the cosmos personal to the minnows and ants on planet earth; face it, the only thing on earth as big as the cosmos is your ego………

Never pray to gravity or the universe or supernatural gods, they do not respond to human requests for intervention. Gravity like your caricature concept of god loves no man more than the man who defies it not and loves no less the man who does.. gltg

Christianity, Islam and Judaism and religions generally, hold the dismal belief that the Laws of Nature respond to wailings and incantations, prayers, petitions, repetitions, finger beading and chants. These ludicrous remnants of ancient mindsets believed the sacrifice of life by someone else’s death to be the ultimate offering for appeasement of the gods. How smart is that?

If the Bible is correct, it seems to me God can foreknow the future (i.e. at least the big picture) because He is shaping it and still allowing free will as long as it doesn’t effect His plan. Exodus is an example, did Pharaoh have free will to let “His people go” before his final plan was completed?

The Bible is too wide a brush to describe God and it is not correct when it comes to God because the Bible describes only a supernatural Caricature Concept of a Folder like on your desktop or in your email that you just sort of drop into it those things for which no other folder seems to accommodate. The Miscellaneous Folder or in the case of the ancients, The God Folder.

Now Jesus on the other hand clearly described the God he referred to as the Father like this:
Supernatural Gods of men never existed. The essence of character, compulsion of conscience, guide of brain power memory along with its ability of reason, logic and discretion form a commonality among men, the wisest being able to understand the concept of “God” WITHIN, wherein resides god, defined. Among atheists, this Knowledge-based concept of the god-head within, is the definition Jesus referred to as the “Father”, NOT the Belief-based system of supernatural Gods of men, or the God of the Bible.

In addition Jesus always referred to the Conscience, the Self Witness as the Father we all have inside: the memory of brain that teaches us by experience, reason and logic so we may have that Good Gosh, Holy Spirit to guide us through life.

Jesus knew he was a microcosom of the whole human race by simply looking inside himself, seeing the father and putting the Spirit into practice.

And finally Where does the Father live? IN HIS KINGDOM!
You can read it in Luke 17: 20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” THE KINGDOM OF GOD (THE FATHER) IS WITHIN YOU.

The clergy teaches only about supernatural gods of men which as most of us all know does not exist; it’s called mythology.

What sense does it make to assign intelligence to an impersonal being? That’s like saying a colorless liquid is red. If something has intelligence, then it must be personal.

The existence of evil and suffering in the world does not require that God be impersonal. It only requires that God have a sufficient moral reason for permitting evil. There is no contradiction between the existence of evil and the existence of a personal God, such that evil/suffering require an impersonal “god.”

How do you reason that in order to know the future movement of every particle God must be every particle? That doesn’t follow. That’s like saying in order to have exhaustive knowledge of every baseball stat from 1962 one must be a number.

I won’t respond to the rest of what you said because it has nothing to do with the topic.

Yes, OT makes sense of prayer, but OT is not required to make sense of prayer. Prayer can be equally understood on an Arminian, Molinistic, or Calvinistic view. God knows not only the ends of what we choose, but the means by which we will choose them. For example, God would know that if He did not tell Hezekiah he would die, then Hezekiah would not ask God to extend His life, and God would not do so. But God wanted to extend Hezekiah’s life, and He knew that if He told Hezekiah he would die, Hezekiah would freely choose to ask God to let him live longer. So God used the means of informing Hezekiah in order to prompt Hezekiah’s response. God knew from all eternity how Hezekiah would respond, and that He would only respond that way if God acted in the way He did.

Many people falsely assume that if God knows the future, then our choices/acts are not free. But this does not follow. While God’s knowledge of the future is fixed, it is our free choices that inform what God knows; not the other way around. As William Lane Craig likes to say, while God’s knowledge is chronologically prior to our choices, our choices are logically prior to God’s knowledge.

You can address me as Paul if you wish. According to Exodus I get the impression Pharaoh didn’t say yes till God wanted him too. And what about Jonah? Looks like to me God wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I’m not sure if sayings like hardened his heart or put a hook in his jaw indicate freedom of choice or not though?

Jason:
Sorry.
Yes I did use the term exhaustive to be synonymous with infinite because it would have to be synonymous if one compares attributes the term to an infinite God; otherwise, how could exhaustive possibly be fully comprehensive since being “fully comprehensive” suggests a finite attribute?

Paul:
I suggest that the Old Testament is full of embellishment to accommodate supernaturalism. But you are correct in your take on freedom of choice. However a hardened heart in one instance may be negative but in the case of another term meaning the same may be positive such as persistence, for example which the widow of the New Testament had when she pestered the Judge for justice. Saying the widow’s heart was hardened may not be so kind and polite as the term persistent which Jesus said was a mighty important virtue.

The term “Entity” is defined as “Something that exists by itself.” (eg. The universe exists by itself.) Nothing personal fits in this definition.

And the term “Impersonal” is defined as “Having or showing no interest in individual people or their feelings : Lacking emotional warmth.”

Does the Christian Personal God display emotions?

And overlooking the existence of famine and pain and suffering, I still see no real evidence of a Personal God. To have such beliefs, you certainly have factual evidence. If you do, please bring it up next time for examination, Jason.

I’m very certain that your version of a god, the one of the bible, does not conform to my version, defined above.

These definitions, and the answers that are found and not found in the scientific process, sum up my opposition to the Christian belief systems which describes a “Personal God.”

You asked me How do I reason that in order to know the future movement of every particle God must be every particle?

My statement to you was the only known way this Entity could accomplish this feat is to BE each and every particle, OR to BE INVOLVED with each and every particle, as in it’s observation. Your God would need to make one of these choices or the other.

As I stated there is a scientific theory which would affect this dilemma, The Wave Duality Theory. It doesn’t allow for a “God” to either observe, or be every particle, WITHOUT effecting said particle’s being or motion.

Speaking of your definition of a Personal God, He would need to have presence to every particle in the universe, in order to know the future of every happening in it.

If there is a Personal God, as you state, that is “all-knowing,” then by the Law of Causality there will be an influence over the human. The influence will be observed by the particles that are his makeup, and also by those particles that are not in his makeup, residing in the entirety of the universe. This will always take away some freedom from the person.

So, my point is there can be no free will, whether your truth of a Personal God holds to be fact, or not.

You stated “I won’t respond to the rest of what you said because it has nothing to do with the topic.”

After re-reading both of our replies, I believe that my statements about Christ’s miracles spoken of in the Christian bible are relevant to the subject, as it points out the facts opposing Christ’s (Christian’s Personal God) Godly existence.

If God has always known, then have I been (Dane) omnipresent in the mind of God in eternity? If I am, does that make my existence necessary and God not free? Is there a point that God knows and that he then can do otherwise?

Jason,
The point I was making was that OT makes better sense of prayer than the other options. God was truly set in his mind to destroy the Israelites but Moses interceded for them and because of Mose’s prayer God did not destroy them. Moses’ prayer truly changed God’s mind. If God had already known (foreknowledge) that Moses was going to pray and intercede for the people and that He would not destroy the people as a result of the prayer, then how could God in real time get angry and threaten to destroy them when He knew that He wasn’t really going to have to destroy them? It seems like a farce. God was pretending to be angry and making false threats. Whereas with open theism, God knows all the possible choices we can make and the probability of which way we might choose. So even though God may have known that there was a high degree of possibility that Moses would pray for the people if they continued on in unbelief and disobedient actions that they had since He rescued them from Egypt, because it was not a certainty, God’s anger is real and his change of mind is real and not pretend.

The same goes with Hezekiah. God, by sending the prophet to warn Hezekiah of his impending death, may have given Hezekiah an opportunity to pray for a second chance. That sounds reasonable but it would mean that Hezekiah’s bitter weeping changed God’s mind before the beginning of creation and that in time God was simply, perhaps in a mechanical fashion reliving the event, without any real tugging on his heart for mercy since He had known this was to happen years and years and years before it actually did.

God exhaustively knowing the future like a blueprint makes our interactions with him suspect. Any genuine surprise on His part, or true change of His heart, or God experiencing real sorrow is brought into question since He already knows what is to happen. God becomes an actor.

I must say OMG. Open Theism and opponents of same are speaking in one voice: in other words, if it wasn’t for nonsense, they would have no sense at all.

Another word for a prayer is, a wish, a hope, a dream; some of it comes to pass but none of it because by supernatural intervention, only by desire, fortitude, persistence, of the pray-er, the wish-er, the hop-er the one who needs or wants the end he waits for but actually is an activist in bringing it about.

Don’t wait for the Second Coming, BE the Second Coming you are waiting for; be an activist. Hey if you are thirsty what should you do, go look for water or sit in the closet and pray for it?

The problem with Christians trying to explain evil in the world they always talk abouot the evil associated with bad decisions or immoral decisions made by man so that man is respobsible because of free will.

While that may be an argument for allowing evil based on moral judgments for example, what about natural evil, like the tsunami, earthquakes, typhoons, floods, storms at sea, natural evil and suffering the befall the unfortunate ?

THis has nothing to do absolutely with free will or morals so then why does a good god allow such things; simply, there is no personal god that intervenes on any man’s behalf.

1-It’s not a “problem” in explaining that man has free will & often makes immoral / evil decisions & bears responsibility for same, it’s Biblical & observational fact. 2- Nice try in inventing the term “natural evil” to somehow equivocate non thinking wind, rain & volcanism to human evil. Then you turn around & say this natural evil so called has nothing to do with free will so as to artificially set up another of your phoney contradictions. If God’s command had been followed there would have been no death & no curse on the earth. 3- You have absolutely no grounds to make this statement that no God intervenes on any man’s behalf. How would you possibly know?

You defined “being” as “the quality or state of having existence,” and then say “nothing personal fits this definition. I don’t know what you are talking about. Being comes in two primary forms: personal and impersonal. You have being, and you are personal. If God exists, then His being is either personal or impersonal.

To say “existence exists” is a meaningless tautology. It’s like saying “north is north.”

You are only citing one definition of impersonal. Rocks are impersonal, but they are not impersonal because they lack emotional warmth.

I still have no idea what you are talking about regarding God and particles. You don’t have to be something in order to be involved in something. An engineer can oversee every part of an engine he created while not being every part of that engine.

To think that God is subject to particle physics and quantum events is to assume that God is a physical being. Talk about a category error!

If there is no free will, then there is no rationality. You did not come to that position through an examination of the evidence. You came to that position due to physics acting on your physical stuff. Likewise, I disagree with you, not because of any evidence pro or con, but because physics has determined that I believe in free will. In the end, all discourse becomes pointless and meaningless, and rationality is undermined. If you are right, your view cannot be rationally defended. In the end, we are all just “fizzing.” Your view undermines itself.

As for your follow-up, no, this thread is not about whether God exists. It is about the extent of His knowledge. It is about Biblical exegesis, which has nothing to do with the separate question of whether that God exists or not.

Knowledge has nothing to do with presence, so you would not be omnipresent in God’s mind. But yes, if God has perfect knowledge, then He has foreknown you from all eternity. Does that make your existence necessary? No. Your existence is contingent, based on God’s will to create you. If God had not willed to create you, then He would not have known you from eternity past. His knowledge of you is contingent on His will. Don’t confuse certainty with necessity. God’s eternal knowledge of you makes it certain that you will exist, but your existence was never necessary because God’s eternal knowledge of you was contingent on His will to create you. There was no necessity that God do that.

God will not do anything other than what He foreknew He would do. If He would have done otherwise, then He would have foreknown that other action from eternity past instead of the “original” action.

Yes, OT could explain that well, but a view holding to God’s imperfect knowledge of the present would also make better sense of Abraham’s testing; God’s imperfect knowledge and incomplete presence would best explain God’s need to come down to see if Sodom was as bad as He heard; God’s limited presence would make best sense of God walking in the cool of the day; God’s incomplete power and goodness would make best sense of the problem of evil. The question is not whether a particular view can make better sense of a passage taken at face value, but whether the passage should truly be taken at face value to begin with.

Beingreal,
“You defined “being” as “the quality or state of having existence,” and then say “nothing personal fits this definition. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

First off, in my very first post to you, (post #2) I never called your version of whatever creative forces were responsible for reality a “being.” I only answered your second post to me using your word, being. I started out calling these primal creative forces an Entity, which is impersonal in scope.

Merriam-Webster’s first, (thus, the purest) definition of ENTITY: SOME THING(S) that exists by itself. This qualifies is a strictly impersonal definition.

You responded to this post of mine with post #9 thusly: What sense does it make to assign intelligence to an IMPERSONAL BEING?

I then responded to this post of yours with this piece on YOUR word “BEING.” MY (favorite) definition of “Being” is Merriam-Webster’s FIRST definition: “The quality or state of having existence.” Nothing personal fits in this definition as the phrase only speaks of some thing existing.

As for “all-intelligent,” forces have shown to have this capability, as in games like Conway’s Game Of Life. Highly impersonal, but performing extremely intelligently.

From all evidence, and lack of evidence available in our shared reality, there is nothing perceivable called “spiritual.” Therefore, this subject only exists in the belief systems created inside of the emotional mind of human beings like yourself.

On post #14 I invited you to post any proofs of spiritual with this statement: “I still see no real (perceptive) evidence of a Personal God. To have such beliefs, you certainly have factual evidence. If you do, please bring it up next time for examination, Jason.”

I’m still waiting for some semblance of tangible evidence from you on spiritual.

Your next line, post#22 was this:
Being comes in two primary forms: personal and impersonal. You have being, and you are personal. If God exists, then His being is either personal or impersonal.

Human beings put emotional emphasis on subjects they talk about in order to convey the meaning they feel inside. To me, the Atheist, you have placed your emphasis about this subject with your word “god,” the Christian creator-force spoken of in your bible.

Again, I see only impersonal forces as described by science, and science only. They are only impersonal forces, and they care not for any particle they ever formed.

I submit to you that this, your personal belief, is unfounded in any viable science, thus it is strictly a personal belief, funded by your emotional center, since you have zero tangible evidence to draw from in science…so you are only going on what you feel inside as your “evidence.”

Personal feelings, or as we sometimes call them, emotions, are extremely fickle. Anyone who has ever placed a bet, say at the roulette wheel, bases it primarily on their feelings. I’ve realized that bets are a poor choice for living one’s life by.

I fully understand this position of yours as I was once a devout, practicing Christian for more than fifty years before I set all of these beliefs of mine up in a test against the perceptive realities of existence, called reason. This metanoia was eye-opening for me.

I also understand that your beliefs are indeed sacred to you, as mine, or anyone else’s beliefs are to them, and I do not attack you, only the premise you’ve brought here.

After discovering that the other side of the philosophical “fence” was my factual basis for living, (Atheism) I decided that in order for me to live an authentic life, I could never again go against hard, logical fact. To live an authentic life was, and is paramount to me, and it is the way of truth that I, nor anyone can violate.

As to your god being an all-knowing god:

I stated in post #14 “It (the Wave Duality Theory) doesn’t allow for a “God,” nor anyone else to either observe, or be every particle, WITHOUT effecting said particle’s being (state) or motion.”

Your statement:
“I still have no idea what you are talking about regarding God and particles. You don’t have to be something in order to be involved in something. An engineer can oversee every part of an engine he created while not being every part of that engine.”

The universe is made up entirely of energy…forces. These forces form minute particles on the quantum level of size. These particles will interact and sometimes congregate to form objects, and human beings.

If your version of the Christian god holds true, in that he is all-knowing, (in effect, he knows the past, present, and future of everything in our universe) he would need to observe each and every one of them. Then by the Wave Duality Theory, his observance of these particles in our makeup holds sway over our free will as it would have a direct effect on the particle’s trajectories.

Thus the so-called interference with said particle’s free will. In effect, you are stating that (your) god controls everything’s free will, if he knows the future.

If your god really exists, and is all-knowing, he is either violating the free will of every particle in the universe by changing their direction through his observance of them, or violating one of his own immutable tenets of quantum physics, the Wave Duality Theory.

You then state this:
“To think that God is subject to particle physics and quantum events is to assume that God is a physical being. Talk about a category error!”

Again, you assume that there is such a thing as “spiritual,” basing this premise and the entirety of your belief system only on your unreliable emotions, even if there isn’t a glimmer of a factual basis for this belief.

I have learned to understand that whatever phenomenon proves to be, it, or it’s effects can be observed by scientifically reasonable and viable perceptive practices. It then falls into the category of either IS, OR IS NOT. Everything beyond this axiom is strictly opinion. Thus, you argue this subject based only on your personal opinion, without any facts.

Particle physics deal with observable perceptions, since this is all that we human beings have at our disposal to observe the reality around us. The scientific practice is well supported by the practice of peer-review. Unfounded, and emotionally-driven, supported-by-untestable, or fictitious-evidence-type belief systems have no such practice. They are only a human invention, acting as a personal security blanket, but also for controlling other humans.

Science must have evidence duplicatable in every way, or it will change it’s beliefs about any of it’s subjects. It will choose that which passes every test, every time, by anyone who dilligently applies the prescribed scientific practices to the subject, or it will surrender the unprovable for that which works.

Scientific phenomenon have been shown to be factual in the distant past due to evidence found in the present, both mathematical and observational. All of science is in place due to the diligent use of evidence.

The emotionally-charged premise of the Christian god has won-over your penchant for logic and reason, as mine did when I practiced this superstition.

You state that “If there is no free will, then there is no rationality.”

How do you know that we human beings are indeed rational? I for one, do not believe in free will. Now, a person can have a certain amount of free will, but only by the standard of the physical abilities he has exposed himself to. For most folks, their “free will” is driven by their appetites.

A crazy man may jump out of a window because he believes that his free will has allowed him to do this and live afterwards. A person must tell himself that he is rational. Then he must prove this to himself by acting rational, to his own capabilities. Then he thinks that he is rational. Rationality is strictly a relative subject.

Take the person on the ocean liner, out at sea. He may be “free” to roam about the ship. But he is cut-off from the mainland. You cannot jump up into the air and start to fly, Jason. your will may want this to happen, but it will not. You see, it is all a matter of degrees.

You then state “I disagree with you, not because of any evidence pro or con, but because physics has determined that I believe in free will.”

No. The agenda that you carry for your entirely emotionally-based belief system has determined for you that you believe in free will. You manipulate your mind to keep your agenda intact in order to hold onto your beliefs, mainly against viable outside proof against them, because you’ve determined that your present beliefs serve you. And you call this “free?” I call it a closed will.

Jason, open theist’s don’t deny the omni’s. They do speak of God deliberately limiting himself because he has power to do so for specific reasons. This self-limitation is not the same as an inherent limitation. You may want to read their writings so that you don’t misrepresent them. Here’s a snippet from Boyd’s blog on the difference between Molinism and Open Theism.

“The distinct claim of Open Theism is that we have biblical, experiential and philosophical reasons for believing that God did in fact create a world in which some “might and might not” propositions are true. Which is to say, he created a world in which the future is partially open, comprised of possibilities rather than settled facts. And God did this, in our view, precisely because he didn’t want to unilaterally determine all that comes to pass. (How boring that would be for God!) God rather wanted to populate this cosmos with free agents, thereby creating the possibility of genuine love, adventure, and yes, the risk of sin and evil”. – See more at: http://reknew.org/2014/05/molinism-and-open-theism-part-ii/#sthash.imTCxXrT.dpuf

God is created by the imagination of man; so also, are the attributes created in the same place. Purely speculative creations are anybody’s guess and the imagination the limitations or exploanations of the creators of caricature concepts..

I have read some open theists, though not Boyd (other than the many quotes of Boyd in this book). I don’t think I have misrepresented their position. I never claimed that they deny the omnis. The focus here is on omniscience. They affirm that God is omniscient, but define omniscience as God’s having perfect knowledge of all that can be known. Perhaps you were simply being too brief, or perhaps you are describing a view that only some open theists hold to, but it seems to me that your description of their position as “God deliberately limiting himself because he has power to do so for specific reasons” (unless there are some open theists who hold to this take on it, but this is problematic in itself because it is not possible for God not to know something that can be known – the only limitation of the divine knowledge was in the person of Christ, and that was only possible because of Jesus’ human nature) as a misrepresentation of open theism. To say God is limiting his knowledge is to say there is more to know than what God does know AND COULD KNOW. But they don’t think God could know anything more than what He does know. They think God knows all that there is to be known: everything in the past and present, and every possibility. They just don’t think God COULD know the future for two reasons: 1. The future does not exist, and you can’t know something that does not exist; 2. If God could and did have knowledge of the future, then human choices would not be free, which invites a host of theologically unacceptable problems.

I’m typing on my phone, so I can’t get into the reasons why I disagree with these two major presuppositions, but I will say that while on first blush they seem like God reasons for holding their view about what is logically possible for God to know, both presuppositions are wrong. Indeed, I would consider them to be rather sophomoric mistakes of reasoning (not to mention their poor exegesis of scripture, which was the focus of the book I reviewed).

Jason, what bothers me the most about the of “blueprint worldview” of God’s foreknowledge is I find it difficult to understand how God can be surprised, or angry, or pleased, or have any interaction with us in time and express any emotion since he already knows what is going to happen from before the world came into existence. God would be going through the motions of anger with sin or joy when a sinner repentance if he already is certain it will happen. This is something I’ve struggled with before even becoming aware of Open Theism. OT explains this the best, imo.

Maybe that is my understanding of OT…that God limits himself to only know some things as possibilities and other things as certainties (such as the death of Christ).I don’t think I have it wrong, at least I don’t believe I have misunderstood Boyd. By my saying that God is limiting his knowledge, I meant his knowledge of everything as a certainty…some things he has left open.even though he knows all possibilites.

How do you explain this passage of scripture in Jeremiah 3? Especially the part where the LORD says “I thought after she has done all these things she will return to me, but she did not return”? How do you explain that the nation of Israel did not do what God thought that they would do?

Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. 7 “I thought,after she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.

I know you are communicating with Jason and have not addressed you comments to anyone else; nevertheless, I beg your indulgence for offering some commentary about Jeremiah.

People always use human emotions to describe God and that’s not surprising since man created the essence of the Gods using man’s emotions, intellect and imaginations and so we clutter the cobwebs of our synapses about God likenesses using the human experience that created God likenesses.

Jeremiah was a fundamentalist and everything he saw Israel and Judah do in his eyes unclean, his urge was to purge the nation, as preachers in every generation do. The same fundamentalists that complained about the attack of 911, blaming the society of sexual deviants and corruption and all the ungodly ways of the USA nation for the attack of 9/11. That’s what Jeremiah was doing do……Jeremiah’s preaching was like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s preachings as the following excerpt reveals and of course all the while, saying they were merely admonishing the people as God wanted them to……

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are fundamentalist Christians and like fundamentalist Muslims, Hindus, and Jews, fundamentalist Christians are known by their “urge to purge.” They believe they are called to “cleanse” society of all they find “unclean” and by cleansing society they will “save it.”

Osama bin Laden is a Muslim fundamentalist. He believes that Allah wills him to destroy America, “the Great Satan.” He is convinced that his war against our nation is Jihad (“holy war”). The terrorists who hijacked the planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were convinced that Allah will reward them for their sacrifice.

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are fundamentalist Christians. They believe that they are called by God to cleanse this nation of sexual minorities (and pagans, feminists, abortionists, etc.) and thus to save it. They believe that those who advocate the acceptance of sexual minorities (and other liberal causes) are an “abomination in God’s sight” and must be converted or purged. And though Pat and Jerry have never called for violence against
these “enemies of God” at least one of the biblical verses they misuse regularly to condemn sexual minorities states clearly that we are “worthy of death and should be executed, (Leviticus 20).”

And though I am convinced that their extremist remarks isolated them from the American mainstream, I am still deeply concerned about the consequences of the antigay jihad or holy war that Robertson, Falwell and the other spiritual extremists (Christian terrorists) were waging against us. Their daily misuse of a handful of Biblical verses to condemn sexual and gender minorities still confuses good people of faith across the nation. Those good people of faith who have been convinced that homosexuality is a sickness, a sin, and a threat to the nation, are now waging war against the LGBT community in and through their mainstream Roman Catholic and Protestant churches to deny religious and political rights and protections.

— by Rev. Mel White

Jeremiah parallels Falwell and Robertson and all their vim and vinegar vigor mirrors preachers in every generation but it is also noted in Jeremiah the scripture:

Jeremiah 23: 25-27 “I know what they’re saying, all these prophets who preach lies using me as their text, saying ‘I had this dream! I had this dream!’ How long do I have to put up with this? Do these prophets give two cents about me as they preach their lies and spew out their grandiose delusions? They swap dreams with one another, feed on each other’s delusive dreams, trying to distract my people from me just as their ancestors were distracted by the no-god Baal.

28-29 “You prophets who do nothing but dream—
go ahead and tell your silly dreams.
But you prophets who have a message from me—
tell it truly and faithfully.
What does straw have in common with wheat?
Nothing else is like God’s Decree.
Isn’t my Message like fire?” God’s Decree.
“Isn’t it like a sledgehammer busting a rock?
30-31 “I’ve had it with the ‘prophets’ who get all their sermons secondhand from each other. Yes, I’ve had it with them. They make up stuff and then pretend it’s a real sermon.

32 “Oh yes, I’ve had it with the prophets who preach the lies they dream up, spreading them all over the country, ruining the lives of my people with their cheap and reckless lies.

“I never sent these prophets, never authorized a single one of them. They do nothing for this people—nothing!” God’s Decree.

34 “And if anyone, including prophets and priests, goes around saying glibly ‘God’s Message! God’s Message!’ I’ll punish him and his family.

35-36 “Instead of claiming to know what God says, ask questions of one another, such as ‘How do we understand God in this?’ But don’t go around pretending to know it all, saying ‘God told me this . . . God told me that. . . .’ I don’t want to hear it anymore. Only the person I authorize speaks for me. Otherwise, my Message gets twisted, the Message of the living God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

37-38 “You can ask the prophets, ‘How did God answer you? What did he tell you?’ But don’t pretend that you know all the answers yourselves and talk like you know it all. I’m telling you: Quit the ‘God told me this . . . God told me that . . .’ kind of talk.

39-40 “Are you paying attention? You’d better, because I’m about to take you in hand and throw you to the ground, you and this entire city that I gave to your ancestors. I’ve had it with the lot of you. You’re never going to live this down. You’re going down in history as a disgrace.”

The simple point is:
People always use human emotions to describe God and that’s not surprising since man created the essence of the Gods using man’s emotions, intellect and imaginations and so we clutter the cobwebs of our synapses about God likenesses using the human experience that created God likenesses.

Have you read the book I purchased for you from Amazon by Greg Boyd, God of the Possible? I was hoping you would read a book by an Open Theist to get their arguments from someone other than their opponents. I’d like to read your thoughts on it. Thanks

Not yet Carol. It’s in a stack of books I have to read. 🙂 But I have read open theists in the past. I’m just not convinced that it’s the best exegesis of Scripture, nor that it’s philosophically sound.

I’m not convinced the open view of the future is the best way to understand God’s providence although, imo, it explains some things much better than other views especially God’s response to the actions of people, the importance of prayer, and the free will of people to make contrary choices. I don’t think the “blueprint” view of God’s foreknowledge or even the simple view of God’s foreknowledge has those answers.

I think neotheism’s interpretation of the Bible is flawed. They also cherry-pick their data. As Roy shows in his book, there is an abundance of evidence that God knows the future free actions of human beings. That strikes to the heart of neotheism.

As for God’s response to people’s actions, consider the early chapters of Genesis. When Adam and Eve sinned, God asks Adam if he ate of the tree. Why? God knew He had (on neotheism God has perfect knowledge of the past and present). God knew the answers to all of the questions he posed to Adam and Eve. So why did He ask them? Because it allowed Him to interact with Adam and Eve on their level. It allowed them to confess their sin. God will often interact with humans as if He did not know the future (or present) to bring us to a particular place. God knows in advance that if we do Q, then He will do R, and then we will choose S (though we could have chosen C,D, or E), and then He will do T, to which we will respond by doing U (though we could have chosen F,G, or H). In other words, God knows the interplay between our choices and His before they ever happen, but also understands that if He does not do R, then we will never face the choice of C,D,E, or S, yet alone choose S. Our choices and God’s choices intersect and play off of one another. Although God knows the outcome of this exchange of choices, during the interplay He only acts on what has already unfolded thus far in time.

Neotheism is not necessary to give humans free will. Indeed, neotheism makes the fundamental mistake of thinking that if God has knowledge of the future then our decisions are not free. This mistakes knowledge for a cause. It also fails to understand the distinction between temporal ordering and logical ordering. While God’s knowledge of our acts is temporally prior to our acts, our acts are logically prior to God’s knowledge. God doesn’t determine what we will freely do, but knows in advance what we will freely choose when it comes time for us to make choices. Our free acts inform God’s foreknowledge. It’s similar to shadows and persons. When a person is walking the street at night, I may see their shadow around the corner before I see them emerge around the corner, but their person is logically prior to their shadow. If their person was not there, there would be no shadow for me to see. Likewise, while God may know what we will choose in advance (our shadow), what gives substance to that shadow is the person that will make those free choices in the future.

In the first chapter, “How does omniscience square with free will? Open theists claim it can’t.” This is a misrepresentation of a least some open theists, Greg Boyd for one.

And also in the first chapter again, the very first Open Theist claim (per the author) is “1. Since the future doesn’t exist, God can’t know it.” This is another misrepresentation of at least some open theists.

“With the whole of the Christian tradition, [the open view of the future] affirms that God is omniscient, knowing the past, present and future perfectly. But it also affirms that the future decisions of self-determining agents are only possibilities until agents freely actualize them. In this view, therefore, the future is partly comprised of possibilities. And since God knows all things perfectly — just as they are, and not otherwise — God knows the future as partly comprised of possibilities.” http://reknew.org/2014/05/open-theism-a-basic-introduction/

If you can believe that God is capable of kenosis, then it is possible that God can know and predetermine certain future things will happen and know the rest as possibilities.

Some posters may have been following the CNN Series, “Finding Jesus” airing on Sundays at 9:00pm ET.

Today, Tuesday, March 24, 2015 CNN airs another interesting documentary for all you posters interested in developing a full body of different points of view. This documentary called “ATHESTS: Inside the non-believers world” airs at 9:00pm on CNN at 9:00pm ET.

ON CNN TV

To learn more about atheism: Watch “Atheists: Inside the World of Non-Believers” Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.

If you gathered all the ex-Catholics in the United States, they would form the country’s second-largest religion, with nearly 23 million “members.” Only the Catholic Church itself is larger.

By comparison, the number of self-identified American atheists is small – less than 3% of the adult population. But that number has been inching upward, passing American Jews (2.2%) in the latest round of surveys.

OPINION: BECOMING A ‘SEEKER’

“My job is to ask tough questions”, writes CNN’s Kyra Phillips. “But when it comes to faith, God and religion, the more questions I ask in my quest for truth and understanding, the more complicated the answers become.”

“……….My stepfather, who grew up in — but later left — the Mormon church has a perspective on religion that I find intriguing. He doesn’t believe in a God with a long white beard and flowing robes who sits upon a cloud guiding our daily lives. That concept is too abstract. But while he may not embrace “God-liness,” he does believe in “Good-liness.” God, he told me in one of our many colorful spiritual discussions, is the “good” in humankind……….”